Paul Tremelling flew the ultimate Sea Harrier, the formidable FA2, with Britain’s Royal Navy. This Cold War naval fighter was equipped with some of the most capable weapons and sensors in the world, and proved a dangerous opponent to those who underestimated the tenacious little jump-jet. As Paul explains, the Sea Harrier could also bite pilots who didn’t handle it with due care. Deadly, unique and characterful, those who flew the Sea Harrier inevitably fell in love with it. Here Paul shares ten fascinating reasons why he loved flying what was affectionately known as the ‘SHAR’.

“…if you flew a Sea Harrier in the speed band of 30-120 knots, with sideslip  – the jet had a little treat for you. It flipped over and you died.”

10. The boat

I know, it’s a ship. I said it just to annoy the people who get annoyed by that sort of thing. Going to the ship is special. It’s a heart-warming experience finding a slate grey bit of the UK bobbing around on the sea. Especially when your fuel plan allows you for not much more that ‘find ship and land’ at the end of a tactical rough and tumble. The only issue with a ship being our base was that absolutely everything became harder. It moved, in the sense of not being where it was supposed to be 100% of the time. It moved, in the sense of it would actually be pitching, heaving and rolling (and yawing) when you were trying to land on it. But it was home and it made us (almost) unique. It’s probably impossible to be almost unique. Being in the ship made things harder. It was harder to move between briefing rooms, it was harder to make phone calls to coordinate with other assets. It was harder to find your immersion suit. But it was also the most exciting form of ‘fast jet’ aviation available to a British pilot and it made you good at what you did. It put you in a variety of corners and offered you a simple choice – cope or be gone. There were plenty of differences to operating ashore that seem obvious but you did need to learn them. Things like having your ejection seat live whenever you were in the aeroplane. This wasn’t a thing at an airfield because the chances of you falling off an airfield and into the sea whilst strapped to a jet are minimal or nil. If you pitch up at an airfield either before or after your allotted landing time it is doubtful that you’ll have messed up the entire day for everyone who works there – that’s possible on a ship! There is also the much misunderstood notion of being amongst a platform’s primary outputs. This should not result in arrogance. This should result in humility and a desire to get things right. If a whole ship’s company is there to put you into the battlespace (repeat – amongst other key tasks) you had better not screw it up!

9. The AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile

The Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile was, and remains, your best bet for coming home alive if you happen to get into an air-to-air engagement with someone else. It is, on the one hand, the weapon that sets the standard for all others and, because anyone who was sensible bought them, it is also the currency medium-range weapon of the free world. The Sea Harrier got it a little before everyone else and it was perfectly integrated into the machine. It seemed to have a holy marriage with the Blue Vixen and could be used to bring pain to the enemy in any weather by day or night. It is the AIM-120 and Blue Vixen combination that took the Falkland-era FRS Mk 1, which was a simple jet with movable nozzles, to the FA2 standard, which was a decent air defender. The real joy of the Sea Harrier setup was that most aircraft at the time were used to enormous amounts of energy being needed to guide weapons onto them. This allowed them to use their warning receivers to detect weapons being launched at them. Not the Blue Vixen and AMRAAM combo. Sadly [or happily] never used in combat by the UK.